Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was in the Seanad and missed some of the debate. On Tuesday, retired Major General Maureen O'Brien spoke about the fact that while there are occasions where peacekeeping missions have ended up becoming engaged in armed conflict, it is much harder to move from a situation of military conflict or armed deployment to peacekeeping than the other way around.

This comes to a key point. When talking about peacekeeping, the vision is not to have soldiers everywhere forever. The vision of peacekeeping in its UN understanding of the term - and this is why this is kind of crucial - relates to the idea of creating space for peacebuilding. Within the UN, we see that understanding because there are structures in peacekeeping that have clear channels and connections to the structures of peacebuilding. Peacekeeping, with the application of the UN, international law and all of that, should then be linked to peacebuilding structures. For some of these other missions, however, such as some of the ones in the Sahel and in Mozambique in which EU troops have been involved, it seems to be harder to make that leap to peacebuilding from them. The focus and the place where Ireland can add value is in peacebuilding. That piece is crucial. Will the witnesses talk about peacebuilding and its construction, including the differences between the EU and the UN? Both witnesses may answer that question, but it was more directed at Ms Boylan.

I know Mr. Andrews is very passionate about the SDGs, as am I. Ireland played a key role in negotiating them. What we have heard from a number of experts is that the "uniting for peace" resolution has been used, can be used and does not require Security Council unanimity for it to be used. We have also heard that Ireland is the kind of country that could help make it happen. As Mr. Andrews has said, while Europe is losing trust internationally, Ireland is actually the kind of country that has trust, partly because of our rigorous UN history and because we do not have a complicated or muddied history from other EU missions or missions that put interests before principles. Will he comment on that? Do we risk losing some of our impact in that space and our capacity to get something like a "uniting for peace" resolution across the line? That question is for either of them as well.